Portable two-way voice communications transceivers, such as cellular telephones are becoming increasingly popular. In addition to the ability to transmit audible information, in many instances it is desirable to provide a visual display on the communications transceiver to supply the operator with detailed visual text or graphical images that are being transmitted. Likewise, smart cards are also becoming increasingly popular around the world. It is estimated that in the near future ownership of at least one smart card, as well as a portable electronic device that allows the user to read and/or edit information contained on the smart card, will become commonplace.
Furthermore, with the advent of smart cards there is a desire to conduct greater and greater amounts of wireless commercial, financial and service related transactions utilizing smart card technology and the wireless infrastructure. More specifically, there is a great desire to perform secure transactions through wireless technology utilizing information stored on the card and a server database, such as a financial institution, hospital, mail-order company, or the like. Due to this rising popularity in portable electronic devices, there exist concerns over the ability and desire of users to carry numerous separate devices. The problem is that it is difficult and unwieldy to carry various portable electronic devices, e.g. cellular telephones, smart card reader, pagers, and other devices.
Generally a smart card is defined as a card (similar in size to a common credit card) containing a semiconductor chip with some electronics and a memory for storing information. Smart cards are used to store personal information, ranging from medical information to financial data, as well as the storage of monetary value. The large amount of information, or data, stored on a smart card is not generally accessible for editing, use, or viewing without the intervention of a smart card interface, that is capable of reading information contained on the smart card. Also, various different smart cards are presently in use, including those that operate at a variety of different voltages and those that can be accessed by electrical contacts, contactless cards, optically readable cards, magnetically readable cards, etc. It is desirable, therefore, to provide means whereby the owner and/or an authorized individual can view the stored information on the card to determine the status as well as providing means for the conducting of secure wireless two-way voice commercial, financial, and service related transactions, in addition to the utilization of the same apparatus as a conventional cellular transceiver device.
Accordingly, there exist a need to integrate a smart card interface, as well as a cellular transceiver, and a visual display into a portable electronic device, while maintaining portability and ease in carrying the device. This type of portable electronic device would allow the user to conduct numerous types of secure wireless commercial, financial and service related transactions utilizing the smart card and existing wireless technology.
It is a purpose of the present invention to provide new and improved apparatus including a two-way voice communications transceiver, a smart card interface and a visual image display.
It is yet another purpose of the present invention to provide for new and improved apparatus for viewing, editing and performing various types of wireless commercial, financial and service related transactions, utilizing smart card technology and wireless two-way voice transmissions.
It is still another purpose of the present invention to provide new and improved apparatus for viewing information stored on a smart card as well as performing transactions utilizing the smart card, which apparatus contains safe features to prevent unwarranted viewing and use of the information and the smart card.
It is a further purpose of the present invention to provide new and improved apparatus for conducting transactions utilizing a smart card and a two-way voice transceiver, which apparatus is additionally capable of operating as a conventional cellular telephone device.
It is a still further purpose of the present invention to provide new and improved apparatus including a two-way voice communications transceiver, a visual image display and a smart card interface which is portable, wireless and easy to operate.